Really, really, really
by planet p
Summary: AU; Grace Monroe goes to visit Calvin McKenna in the hospital after the accident.


**Really, really, really** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _The Secret Between Us_ or any of its characters.

* * *

It was _so_ ridiculous that she couldn't go to see him in the hospital – just to wish him well, or hold his hand, just for a bit (she'd like it if someone held her hand if she wasn't well, or was _dying_) – so, stuff it all, she did.

She didn't care what the police, or even her mom would think. It wasn't even about them. Jeez, it was about Mr. McKenna! (The least she could do, after hitting him with her mom's car, which _she_ had been _driving_, was to say a few encouraging words that he might get better.)

They always said it was the thought that counted, and if, deep down, all people could hear other people's thoughts, or sentiments, or if it went out into the world, waiting to be plucked out of the air by the right person and listened to like a message on an answering machine, then she was going to record a whole, whole heap of messages for Mr. McKenna!

Because, Jesus, she hadn't meant, meant, meant to hit him!

She just hadn't seen him!

And she was so sorry.

So that was what she was going to the hospital to tell him, well, to let him know, if he wanted to know, she supposed. (Maybe she'd whisper it, really quietly, just once; just so she knew that he'd got the message.)

She hoped she'd be allowed in to see him.

Maybe she'd sneak in, if they weren't going to let her. (Or, if they turfed her out, she could stand outside his window and think it – because she really, really needed to think it! She needed, just once, to know that though she'd done the wrong thing, however inadvertently or accidentally, that she'd done the right thing, afterward. She tried to do the right thing!)

She wasn't going to be a victim, either. She was going to say, 'Well, it happened.' And then she was going to see about remedying it. Loads of people had been hit by cars on movies, and they'd lived, and those parts can't just have been 'movie magic' because she knew that even on movies they had medical advisors and things, so it could happen; people could _get better_ and live, even after they'd been hit by cars!

So that was what she was hoping for, and if she hoped for it, and Mr. McKenna hoped for it, too, she thought that maybe it could come true.

She wasn't going to stay for very long, she told him, when she arrived, because she didn't want to give him anything, like a bug, if she had any she didn't know about, plus, her mom would probably kill her anyway if she found out.

She just told him that she wanted him to live, and, you know, get better, and that she knew that people definitely had before, and that he could, too, she supposed, and that was what she really, really wanted.

She knew that he wanted it, too. At least, that was what she told him. (It wouldn't do to think on why exactly he'd ended up in front of her mom's car in the pitch black and pouring rain, out running in _that_ weather. It wouldn't do, at all.) She told him that she knew that he wanted to go on sharing his passion for history with teenaged kids, as ratty as they acted, and that that was why he knew he had to live, to give even the ratty kids a chance, because every kid deserved a chance.

She'd gotten on to telling him about why she'd thought he'd became a teacher in the entirely first place, when she realised that she was imposing just a bit, and dropped it. She snuck a bit closer and leant down to whisper in his ear, thinking about hospital smell and the fact that he was warm, and she could feel that too, so he couldn't lie, afterwards, and she would swear to it in a court of law and under oath if it came to that. (She was a bit freaked out, but she told herself if anyone had reason to be freaked out, it was Mr. McKenna. He'd just had to listen to her totally insane ramblings for a whole, she didn't know how many minutes, and now it looked like she was either going to knock him out with her head, bite his ear off, or kiss him.)

Of course, she was only going to whisper in his ear. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I want you to live. If you don't want to, can you just do it for me?" She sucked in a breath, but quietly, because she didn't want to annoy him, even though he was sleeping, or embarrass herself. (He's _sleeping_, she told herself; even if they say it's a coma, he's really sleeping. I can see it; I'm standing right here.) "Okay, that's all I had to say, pretty much," she added. "I'll, like, leave you to sleep now, I guess."

She straightened her back and softly let her breath out, then remembered that she'd meant to take his hand, and stooped again and scooped it up gently, trying very hand not to make a face at the things attached to his arm. "But you're gonna be okay, Mr. McKenna," she whispered, "I can feel it." (She prayed, prayed, prayed he didn't feel her lie. She wasn't lying for a bad reason, so she prayed he'd think she was telling the truth. She _wanted_ it to be the truth, but even she didn't have that power.)

She let go of his hand, remembering how it had been warm after she'd let it go, and was already at the door, and quietly left the room. (It had been _warm_, she reminded herself as she walked away from the room.)


End file.
